Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Consumers' Willingness To Pay And To Patronize According To Major Restaurant Attributes, Jitka Perutkova

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

This study identifies the most important factors in the consumer decision-making process when choosing a restaurant. Using a dynamic comparison process, this study additionally explores consumers' willingness to pay for each of three major attributes of restaurants: food quality, service, and ambience. Understanding this relationship is important for managers in attaining the aspired level of consumer satisfaction. Results indicate that food quality is more important than service and ambiance in upscale restaurants, while speed of service is more important than food quality and ambiance in quick-service restaurants. Thus, consumers are willing to pay more for high-quality food at upscale restaurants …

Primed For Death: Law Enforcement-Citizen Homicides, Social Media, And Retaliatory Violence, Vladimir Bejan, Matthew Hickman, William S. Parkin, Veronica F. Pozo

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

We examine whether retaliatory violence exists between law enforcement and citizens while controlling for any social media contagion effect related to prior fatal encounters. Analyzed using a trivariate dynamic structural vector-autoregressive model, daily time-series data over a 21-month period captured the frequencies of police killed in the line of duty, police deadly use of force incidents, and social media coverage. The results support a significant retaliatory violence effect against minorities by police, yet there is no evidence of retaliatory violence against law enforcement officers by minorities. Also, social media coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement increases the risk of …

Nebraska Business And Consumer Confidence Indexes: January 5, 2018, Eric Thompson

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

Consumer and business confidence declined in Nebraska during December 2017. The Consumer Confidence Index – Nebraska (CCI-N) fell to 93.3 in December, well below the neutral level of 100.0. The index had reached a record level of 106.2 in November, but that high level of confidence was not sustained. The Business Confidence Index – Nebraska (BCI-N) fell from 114.1 in November to 107.5 in December. While lower, the December reading remains well above the neutral value of 100.0. When asked about the most important issue facing their business, customer demand was mentioned by 38 percent of respondents. The availability and …

Time Delay And Investment Decisions: Evidence From An Experiment In Tanzania, Plamen Nikolov

Economics Faculty Scholarship

Attitudes toward risk underlie virtually every important economic decision an individual makes. In this experimental study, I examine how introducing a time delay into the execution of an investment plan influences individuals’ risk preferences. The field experiment proceeded in three stages: a decision stage, an execution stage and a payout stage. At the outset, in the Decision Stage (Stage 1), each subject was asked to make an investment plan by splitting a monetary investment amount between a risky asset and a safe asset. Subjects were informed that the investment plans they made in the Decision Stage are binding and will …

Testing The Easterlin Paradox: Results And Policy Implications, Edsel L. Beja Jr

Economics Department Faculty Publications

The Easterlin Paradox is about the contradiction between an evidence of a short-run relationship between happiness and income growth and no evidence of a long-run relationship between happiness and income growth. The paper argues that there is confirmation of the Easterlin Paradox when the magnitude of the estimated long-run relationship is practically equal to zero notwithstanding its statistical significance. The findings of the paper support the Easterlin Paradox.

The Effects Of An Increasing Federal Minimum Wage On Federal Unemployment And Job Automation Levels, Kiana Krayeski

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The industrial revolution was the start of increasing technological advancements that are continuing to grow today. Technology improves accuracy, efficiency and is more productive in comparison to human labor as it does not require breaks and cannot violate any labor laws. With many innovations available today, firms have more options to choose from and can select the relatively cheaper solution. The push for a fifteen-dollar minimum wage affects the firm's options, and the use of technology might increasingly become the more viable choice. This study took data from the years 1993 to 2016 and created two regressions using the unemployment …

Wildfire Risk Perception And Homeowner Mitigation: Evidence From Montana, Madison G. Nagle

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fire prevention managers find that homeowners often do not perform mitigation actions that could reduce the damage and spread of wildfire. There is widespread belief among these fire professionals that one of the primary reasons that homeowners do not perform mitigation actions is that homeowners misperceive the risk that wildfire poses. Thus, a significant component of fire prevention programs’ focus on increasing homeowner awareness of the risk. However, it is possible that homeowners are aware of the fire risk but choose not to mitigate because of a variety of reasons, to include the costs of mitigation, limited monetary liability that …

Sacrifice, Benefit, And Reciprocity: Evidence From A Trust Game, Mirco Dinelli

Honors Theses

Social preferences have generated much interest in recent economic literature. While reciprocity has been closely examined by several economists using gift exchange and other games, much of their focus is on the effect of intentions and motivations. Instead, I focus on two strictly outcome-based factors in the context of a trust game: sacrifice made by the giver and benefit received by the recipient. I attempt to isolate these influences by varying the multiplier across variations of the trust game to create comparison groups that differ in one of these factors, but not both. Unable to control for all expected sources …

Understanding Crude Oil Import Demand Behaviour In Africa: The Ghana Case, George Marbuah

Journal of African Trade

As in many African countries, crude oil importation is a major drain on the economy of Ghana. We estimate short-run and long-run import demand models for crude oil using data over the period 1980–2012. Results show that demand for crude oil is price inelastic in the short-run but elastic in the long-run. Other important drivers of crude oil import are the real effective exchange rate, domestic oil production and population growth. Income is found to be the strongest driver of crude oil demand. Policy implications of our results are presented.

Determinants Of Tipping Behavior: Evidence From Us Restaurants, Nusrat Jahan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to analyze people’s tipping behavior to assess the factors that determine both the likelihood of leaving a tip and tip size in US restaurants. A total 2,334 away from home eating events are considered in this study based on the nationally representative National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) dataset. Two different tipping scenarios are considered for full-service restaurants to examine differences in customers’ behavior under two different situations. Considering that households’ tipping decisions and tip sizes are functions of the demand for personal interest (D"#, ) and the demand for social interest (D&#), different socio-demographic, …

New Book, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• New book +, Anwar Shaikh, compiled material, unpublished working file, undated. The file consists of clippings, reading notes, course-material commentary, research notes, and handwritten notes concerning economics, economic education, market behavior, labor, corporate power, and political economy. The most recent dated material is from June 4, 2018.
• Selling behavioral economics, David Gal, newspaper article from The New York Times, undated in the surviving clipping. The article concerns the development and popularization of behavioral economics.
• The Pentagon Papers as published by The New York Times, Neil Sheehan and others, 1971, Toronto, Bantam Books.
  Sheehan, …

Using Contingent Valuation To Measure The Economic Impact Of Climate Change On Hiker Recreation During New England Peak Foliage, Marina J. Bowie

Honors Theses and Capstones

This paper seeks to define and develop an economic tool for measuring willingness to pay for hiking recreation in the face of climate change in New England during the peak foliage season. Potential climate change impacts to New England are defined, along with relevant economic tools for measuring the market value of non-marketed goods. Ultimately, contingent valuation is chosen as the most viable option, and a survey is developed, pretested, and ready for implementation at the trailhead of Mt. Major in New Hampshire.

Analyzing The Effects Of Self-Esteem And Personality Traits On The Purchase Of Counterfeit Goods, Srishti Slaria

Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Why Less Property Is More: Inclusion, Dispossession, & Subjective Well-Being, David Fagundes

Faculty Articles

The twin notions of exclusion and possession dominate our cultural and legal conceptions of property. This Article uses the lens of hedonics—the emergent science of happiness—to make a case for the less appreciated notions of inclusion and dispossession. Evidence from this new field shows that owners maximize their welfare, not when they amass land and chattels and keep others away from them, but when they pursue the polar-opposite strategies of inclusion and dispossession, such as sharing their property, donating it to charity, or giving it away. This Article begins its defense of inclusion and dispossession by providing background about the …

Essays On Environmental Economics And Policy, Mehdi Nemati

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Environmental goals such as urban water conservation and pollution control regulations are typically achieved through price and non-price methods. This dissertation offers an analysis of the non-price approaches, including the rationing of water for particular users, installation of particular technologies, and adoption of particular certifications to achieve environmental goals. To begin, an analysis of California’s 2015 urban water conservation mandate was performed. Results indicate that the average welfare loss of the mandate is $6,107 per acre-foot of restriction in Northern California and $2,757 per acre-foot of restriction in Southern California. In terms of monthly household-level willingness-to-pay (WTP) to avoid the …

Residential Solar In Washington State, Sam Pfeifer

All Master's Theses

Electricity generated through residential solar provides a low carbon source of electricity. However, diffusion of residential solar remains low across the United States. Growing this diffusion takes an understanding of localized uptake trends, which can focus policy and business efforts to help increase residential solar market penetration. This is the first research to investigate residential solar uptake in Washington State and to examine environmental education as a potential driver of residential solar uptake. Through a snapshot analysis which considers environmental, economic, education, and cultural variables the present research fills this gap. Triangulated results include mapping of variables, ordinary-least squares multiple …

Voices Of Women: The Impact Of Women's Political Reservations On Female Child Mortality In India, Kohsheen Sharma

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper uses state-level variation in the implementation of the 73rd amendment in India to observe the relationship between political reservations for women in local government and female child mortality. Nationally, reservations for women are not associated with a statistically significant difference in female child mortality. However, a state by state analysis shows variations in the level of impact of reservations on the topic of female child mortality. This paper examines the constraints on female representatives and their level of effectiveness in executing pro-female policies given the political and social environment. The two case studies on Kerala and Haryana explore …

Estimating Risk Preferences In The Field, Levon Barseghyan, Francesca Molinari, Ted O'Donoghue, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We survey the literature on estimating risk preferences using field data. We concentrate our attention on studies in which risk preferences are the focal object and estimating their structure is the core enterprise. We review a number of models of risk preferences—including both expected utility (EU) theory and non-EU models—that have been estimated using field data, and we highlight issues related to identification and estimation of such models using field data. We then survey the literature, giving separate treatment to research that uses individual-level data (e.g., property insurance data) and research that uses aggregate data (e.g., betting market data). We …

Welfare-To-Work: The Effect Of Childcare Subsidies On Labor Force Participation Rates For Low-Income Single Mothers, Ariana Cubela

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The allocation of funding toward childcare has historically been debated due to conflicting views on the effect childcare subsidies have on low-income, single mothers. Some suggest that federal, state and local funding could put the money allocated for childcare subsidies to better use – or perhaps that there is no need for additional federal, state and/or local funding. However, there is sufficient evidence that children raised in a family structure with low-income single mothers may face long-term negative consequences not only socially, but also economically. An increase in labor force participation rates as a result of childcare subsidies not only …

Fighting World Hunger Can Be A Win-Win: Innovating Firms Can Do Well By Doing Good, Konstantinos Giannakas, Amalia Yiannaka

CAFIO: Policy Research Group Policy Pagers

A 2018 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that more than 820 million people around the world have been facing malnutrition and hunger.

Based on K. Giannakas and A. Yiannaka. 2018. Doing Well by Doing Good: Agricultural Biotechnology in the Fight against Hunger. Agricultural Economics. doi: 10.1111/agec.12455

The Mall Ain’T Dead Yet! An Aristotelian Argument For The Continuation Of Physical Retail Space With The Rise Of Modern Technology, Tarah Gilbreth

CMC Senior Theses

According to Aristotle, for a human being to live their best life, that is a life that flourishes, is to live a political life. A political life is lived best in a polis , or a self - sufficient community, so therefore, the most flourishing human life is one lived in a polis . Also, for a polis to be self - sufficient, its citizens must be flourishing, so there exists a special sort of constitutive relationship between the polis and its citizens. There are certain capacities available to human beings in the polis that promote their flourishing (namely loyalty …

The Effect Of Fast Food Restaurants On Type 2 Diabetes Rates, Grace Bailey

CMC Senior Theses

This paper conducts an analysis of county level data to determine the effect of fast food restaurants on type 2 diabetes rates. Due to endogeneity concerns with respect to the location of fast food restaurants, this paper follows the work of Dunn (2010) and uses the number of interstate exits in a given county to serve as an instrument for fast food restaurants. The strength of the instrument, which is theoretically and empirically tested in this paper, imposes some restraints on the interpretation of the findings. Using the Two-Stage Least Squares estimation method, I find that the presence of fast …

Contributors Of Singaporean Youths' Wellbeing: Life Goals, Family-Community-Nation Capitals, Opportunity And Social Mobility, Kong Weng Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

Life goals induce one’s current investment and set one’s expectations of future outcomes, affecting one’s current state of subjective wellbeing. Using National Youth Survey (NYS) 2016, which has a representative sample of Singaporean youths, we find that non-zero-sum life goals such as family-oriented life goals and altruism-oriented life goals enhance happiness and life satisfaction of Singaporean youths while career-oriented life goals, zero-sum in nature, reduce subjective wellbeing. Apart from personal motivations or life aspirations, perceived social mobility (in terms of career opportunity and meritocracy) matters positively in the subjective wellbeing of both youths in school and in the workforce. Family …